Air, water, fire, earth: Four and Other Elements — bringing the ethereal and material to canvas

The art show features five Lahore-based artists and will open in Karachi in September.

LAHORE: Four and Other Elements, an art show inspired by, what Curator Aamna Hussain calls, the four elements of life: air, fire, water and earth, will feature Lahore-based artists Kiran Saleem, Sehr Jalil, Julius John, Ghulam Muhammad and Suleman Aqeel Khilji. The show will open at Canvas Gallery, Karachi, on September 2.

Hussain said air symbolised all that cannot be seen. “This includes space, purity of heart, clarity of thought, freedom, flight, breathing and the feeling of being alive. The element is sensed in the vastness of air, in soaring clouds and majestic sunlight – felt but not seen in various mediums.”

Water, she said, represents emotions. “According to tradition, man is made of water and mud – water being the element that gives life.” Water symbolised the soul, feelings, sensations and the subconscious. Hussain said that water allowed the artist to encapsulate contemplative moments, reflections, and free flowing shapes and emotions in oceans, moving water, and still marshes.

Hussain said the element of earth had been used to represent stability, layers and stages. “Earth symbolises strength, resourcefulness, abundance and reliability.”

Fire, she said, represented unbridled emotions – it encapsulated energy, assertiveness, and passion. “It holds the fury and grandeur of thunder storms and the tenderness of love in all its forms,” said Hussain.

Artist Sehr Jalil told The Express Tribune that the idea of Four and Other Elements allowed for infinite possibilities. “It beholds everything material and the metaphysical... from mountains to sunsets.”

Jalil said the infinity and confines of the human being led to intriguing questions. “My quest to portray that took me close to idea of utopia – a paradise. This is relevant especially in our part of the world where we are made to imagine paradise and understand the idea of heaven and hell.” She said she was inspired by holy scriptures and human expression through ages to visualise the idea of paradise. “Even paradise has always been explained through four and other elements.”

Artist Suleman Aqeel Khilji, said, “I examined personal and general notions of dislocation and order. Part of my process was to value the transition of human gestures regarding identity and displacement. In outlining mine and other people’s experiences, I found myself and my work in a transition – from cause to effect and event to event... these transitions are represented through landscape, language, self fashioning and architecture.”

Khilji said he had used photography, press shots, and publicity photographs, as the base for painting his pieces and to locate the margin of abstraction and figuration in enlarged visuals. He has worked with various media and techniques, meshing drawing with painting, print making and digital works.

Art critic Quddus Mirza told The Express Tribune relationship between reality and its realisation in art was perhaps the most important, essential and crucial aspect along with basic element of nature.

It suggests how man in his creative endeavour can conquer and compete with various manifestations of nature. In that sense man’s landing on the moon was as great a work of art as the invention of the wheel and the computer, Mirza said.

“Art is about changing the order of things and artists perform this task through a variety of means, mediums and methods.”

He said artists not only explored the possibilities of a material or an element in nature but in many cases this research became the prime subject, cause and goal for art making. The show will continue until September 11.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 1^st, 2014.